Drones_config

Name: Dronatello Course #11 — What Happens When You Exceed Acceleration Limits
Uploaded: 2026-09-25T13:00:27Z
Description: A practical look at acceleration violations and what happens when real drone physics take over. We run the Drones Config and Animation Sim nodes and compare the original artistic motion to what the drones can actually fly.

Houdini Digital Asset (drones_config) that sets the flight limits of the drones: maximum speed, vertical speed, acceleration and right of way. It writes them onto the drone points, and the simulation nodes downstream read them from there: Animation_sim keeps to them, and Takeoff_Landing uses them for its speed profile and checks.

In the scene template it stands in SHOW_TIMELINE as Drones_config, right before the Show_solver simulation. To give some drones different limits, chain several nodes with different groups.

HDA: houdinitools/hda/drones_config.hda

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Group `group`	String	—	Points (drones) these limits apply to. Empty applies them to all points.
Max speed m/s `max_speed`	Float	5	Highest speed of these drones in m/s. The simulation nodes keep to it, and the takeoff and landing checks measure against it.
Enable Max vertical speed `vertical_limit_toggle`	Toggle	Off	Give these drones a separate, lower limit for climbing and descending. When off, the vertical limit equals Max speed.
Max vertical speed m/s `max_v_speed`	Float	3	Highest speed of climbing or descending for these drones, in m/s. Hidden when `vertical_limit_toggle == 0`
Max acceleration m/s^2 `max_accel`	Float	3	Highest acceleration of these drones, in m/s².
Priority `priority`	Menu	0	Right of way in the simulation: when two drones meet, the one with the higher priority keeps its course and the other gives way. Only which one is higher matters, not by how much.

Video tutorials

Dronatello Course #11 — What Happens When You Exceed Acceleration LimitsA practical look at acceleration violations and what happens when real drone physics take over. We run the Drones Config and Animation Sim nodes and compare the original artistic motion to what the drones can actually fly.